Sidra Crowdsources the Perfect Patient Experience

Our Community Relations and Development (CRD) division is the embodiment of Sidra’s commitment to engage with community members and stakeholders by conducting a range of activities designed to enable the provision of culturally-appropriate and acceptable services for the people of Qatar.

The CRD team are conducting a series of studies focusing on understanding the beliefs and practices of women of childbearing age in Qatar, including Qataris and expats alike, to explore their healthcare experiences. Findings from these studies provide insight into the dynamics of women’s health-seeking behaviors, beliefs, opinions and preferences that are used to support and inform the planning of services, as well as public awareness and public education campaigns.

Similarly, CRD has been recently involved in the Patient Room Amenities Project. This project is one of the most important planned activities in the crucial few months leading to our opening and consists of a survey that enables women to list and share their ideas of possible amenities to be included at Sidra.

To support this project, the CRD team reached out to the American Women Association (AWA) in Doha to ensure that different groups of women are able to take part in choosing the amenities to satisfy the needs of women from different backgrounds.

The AWA members meet monthly to share experiences, make new acquaintances, act as a resource for those new to Qatar and to learn more about the local culture. Recently, the CRD team was hosted in one of AWA’s monthly meetings attended by around 90 members. A brief presentation about Sidra, CRD, and the project was delivered in order to encourage the group to support Sidra by participating in the amenities survey.

We received great feedback from participants who were fascinated by the topic and were enthusiastic to discuss and complete the survey. One participant remarked, “Sidra seems like an amazing hospital, We are so excited to help out in this project and I look forward to future volunteer work to help with the research.”

This project will be conducted among local Arab women in the coming weeks to obtain their input. Eman Nasralla, Community Relations and Development Manager at Sidra, said, “It is crucial for us to capture the preferences of the different ethnicities in the community in order to provide the best service and experience for our patients”.

The survey is expected to produce broader understanding of preferences to generate comprehensive recommendations that support the choice for the most suitable and highest standards of amenities.